Bhagavagd Gita - Session 30- Track 3003

In Bhakti Yoga the object is to attain the sweetness of the relationship with the Divine, not the identity with the Divine, but sweetness of the relationship with the Divine: this is the aim of Bhakti Yoga. What is the instrument? Instrument is emotion. All emotions are purified, sublimated, exercised, all turned towards the Divine; in every emotional movement there has to be the feeling of the divine presence. And what is the method? The method is the straining of the emotions towards the company of the Divine. all emotions are so strained that they are all put into connection with the Divine; it is said ‘straining of the emotions’ because normally our emotions turns towards various objects which are not divine. So, to draw them out from the normal coursings and trains them, turns them towards the Divine. And then, secondly to enjoy the company of the Divine, which is only temporary in the beginning, and suffer the long separation which also heightens the aspiration to meet the Divine, until there is permanent union with the Divine: this is the method of Bhakti yoga.

Now, this chapter, 9th chapter synthesises Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, and Bhakti Yoga. All the three Yogas are united. So the method of all the three Yogas are to be united, and the object is: integral Divine, attainment of integral Divine: that is to say, to discover the Divine with whom you can be identical; to discover the Self that is one; to realise that there is one Self everywhere, that is the aim of the Jnanayoga of the Bhagavad Gita, the realisation of the Oneness of the Self. Secondly, to realise that that oneness is consistent with multiplicity: even though one, it is capable of many, it is capable of all. These two terms are very important: the one that is all, the one that is many.

Question: Can this be termed non-duality?

The first is non-duality: to see one Self is ‘non-duality’. Now, the perception of that one as all and as many is to perceive the many-ness of the Divine or the duality of the Divine: ‘I am different from the Divine’, that is to say to discover not only oneness of the Divine but also to see how I am, although one, still I can have relation with Him: that is the object of the Bhakti yoga in the Gita. It does not divorce, it does not make a conflict, a conflict which is found very often in many philosophies, that if Reality is one, it cannot be all, it cannot be many. If it is non-dual, there cannot be any duality; therefore there is an opposition between the two kinds of philosophies. Dualistic philosophy, Non-dualistic philosophy, and there is a Qualified Dualism: Monism, Dualism, Qualified Monism. There is also Dualism that is Monism and there is acintyaveda vedavāda, another which says that there is a difference between the Divine, and identity with the Divine is of such a nature that there are unthinkable: acintya, unthinkable, it is one and yet many.